State of the Market

[eek]

This thread, or the market ?

This thread at the moment - I just think telling people to lie on their CV is a crap idea and it's even stupider to continue that into an employment check.

So you take a crap permie job in this market, no one is going really care...

If you don't list it then that may or may not be an issue but when it comes to checks it may be better to be honest and say I did xyz but it wasn't relevant for the CV so I left it off and there were better options for references.

[eek]

Yeah and in a court of law, one can argue that a particular role is not considered part of someones work history if they choose it not to be. If you've done 10 jobs in financial services and then couldn't get a job during the pandemic and worked as an amazon delivery driver and you didnt want to put it on your CV, I think a judge would understand that. At the end of the day a CV is a marketing tool, not a legal document. Furthermore you can argue that the employer may discriminate against you for working a delivery job.

You're positioning your argument as if the law is black and white, but its not.

And lastly, you can sit and accuse people of lying - this isn't a court of law. So I suggest you rein yourself in.

I'm not accusing you of lying - given that I have seen most variations of the employment check question (and finance firms are remarkable consisting in phrasing) I'm merely pointing out that you've admitted to doing so...

[perplexed]

I always get a bad feeling when "employment history" check requested.

When engaging a company to provide a service such as cleaning toilets, do they check every client of that company? Of course not. It smacks of applying standards used for permies to contractors - if the ltd I am director of subcontracts, are those checks going to be performed on the subbie?

[sira]

I'm not accusing you of lying - given that I have seen most variations of the employment check question I believe you've admitted to doing so yourself...

A cv isn't a legal document, just a marketing tool. If you asked 100 people, half will agree and half will disagree.

In terms of legal risk, labelling a permanent job as a contract is worse than omitting a role altogether.

[perplexed]

Given it's a B2B relationship, contractor X representing Ltd company B would thus receive full disclosure if they asked client A for a full list of companies they've engaged with along with dates?

[eek]

Given it's a B2B relationship, contractor X representing Ltd company B would thus receive full disclosure if they asked client A for a full list of companies they've engaged with along with dates?

That isn't what the agent is checking though is it? The agent is checking where the contractor worked - if it was a true B2B relationship the work history of the individual would be completely and utterly irrelevant.

[BlasterBates]

I'm in financial services and have always gone through stringent background checks. Labelling a permanent job as a contract is out of the question.



I had this with a contract once. I had started a permie job and left after 5 months as they had lied about the role. So I left it off my CV - the agency that I landed the contract gig with, asked me for bank statements to prove I wasn't working. So I just used a different bank account.

I dont understand your latter statement. My question was how would I disguise a permanent job as a contract job on my CV? Imo it's not possible due to background screenings, and the only option is to leave it out entirely. Obviously Covid has wreaked havoc at the moment, so employers would be somewhat understanding of a short permie job on the CV.

You're right that you don't have to disclose your contracts but you should state that's what you're doing rather than stating you had no contact at that point. The client might automatically exclude candidates who had a short contract because of the risk.

The legal approach is to simply say you are not disclosing what you did in that period.

I believe it is legal to lie about medical conditions, because it is actually illegal to ask.

[SussexSeagull]

This thread, or the market ?

Both?

Certainly the market has gone quiet in the last couple of weeks for me but being the optimist I am putting that down to the school holidays.

[SussexSeagull]

so when asked what were you doing between March and July 2019 and lying by saying you were unemployed and then presenting a secondary bank account when asked for your bank statements (which implies main bank account) isn't trying to misrepresent facts. The simple fact is that the contract was only awarded to Sira as Sira misrepresentied the facts.

So let's see what Fraudulent Misrepresentation is as defined by a law firm Fraudulent misrepresentation – a claimant-friendly case - Walker Morris which says



So I will leave things there..

I said leaving something off a CV isn't fraud (in fact some of my older roles aren't on their anymore purely for space reasons). Not answering a direct question about what you were doing in that time at the interview or vetting stage correctly does carry it's own risks, however.

[jayn200]

That isn't what the agent is checking though is it? The agent is checking where the contractor worked - if it was a true B2B relationship the work history of the individual would be completely and utterly irrelevant.

How much do you really know about business? Like really truly know? During negotiation information is commonly withheld, even misrepresented. It's called information asymmetry. Some of it may be legal, some of it may not, some of it will walk the line. In business you sometimes intentionally break the law and sometimes intentionally violate a contract. It's called taking a risk. You may get caught, you may not but you have ascertained that the risk is worth the benefit to the business (or you should have). There is no business of any substantial size that has not violated a contract or misrepresented some facts at some point.

The ethical business sitting nicely in the corner being 100% honest and open about everything only exists in your imagination. I don't even think its something we should aim to achieve, businesses that try to be perfect fail because of inaction due to lack of risk taking.